


Superglue

by the_space_between1013



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 09:57:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9175231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_space_between1013/pseuds/the_space_between1013
Summary: What happens when the one thing you have left of someone you love is lost?





	

“Where is it? Where’d it go?” Carol asked without turning around, hearing the soft footfalls and knowing it was Tara by the lightness of her step, trying to maintain an even tone, but failing.

“Where’s what?” Tara asked as she entered Carol’s room with a load of laundry. She’d started on the group’s dirty clothes that morning and had finished Carol’s and was bringing it in while another load was in the washer.

“S—My hair tie. The one I wear on my wrist. I took it off earlier so I wouldn’t lose it in the garden. It was right  _here_ and now it’s not,” she continued, rifling through the items on top of the bureau. Her hands were beginning to shake. It’d only been a few minutes since she’d started looking, since she’d come back from the garden, gloves in hand, to reach for that precious bit of elastic and find it  _not in the place she’d put it._

“What’s so special about a hair tie? There are so many around here.” Tara shrugged. “We can replace it.” She didn’t express her puzzlement given the shortness of Carol’s hair. The little piece of elastic was worn through anyway. 

“It’s—you wouldn’t understand.” No one would. But it was the last bit of her she had left. Nothing else had lasted through the months and months of running and fighting for their lives. Just that little bit of elastic that was now gone. She felt a well of panic rise in her and tried to beat down the fear and tears that pricked at her eyes. Hands trembled and her heart hammered in her chest. Eyes roved all around the bureau, tracing every inch over and over again as if it would magically appear and she could calm.

“What’s going on?” Maggie asked as she walked in, eyes taking in the action in the room. 

“Carol’s looking for some band she wears on her wrist,” Tara casually mentioned as she started to fold a shirt on the bed.

Maggie took a sharp breath. “ _That_ band?” she asked aloud, her question directed at Carol. A sharp nod, bare acknowledgment of the question. Grabbing Tara, she pulled the young woman out into the hall. “Help me find Daryl.  _Now.”_  

Her wrist felt too light, bare. She  _never_ took it off. Why  _now?_ It couldn’t be gone. It just couldn’t be! The tears got the better of her and the panic took over and her hands shook, her throat getting tight, and Carol could feel a scream of anguish and fear bubbling in her throat. No no no no no no. This couldn’t be happening.

It was small and round and black and just the tiniest little bit of elastic, that really shouldn’t matter very much at all, not at all, but she hadn’t been able to abide searching the body for anything. So she’d only had the hair tie Sophia had given her before they’d gotten separated on the highway. Because at 12 years old, Mom was still responsible for holding all the things she didn’t want to handle and a black hair tie was one of them. 

Carol felt the tears spill over and out, a sob releasing from her tight throat at the thought of losing the one thing she had left from her little girl. Just that. It was the stupidest, silliest little thing, but it was  _something_ from her little love.

_Christ, WHY_ had she taken it off??? She never did! It was her fault. Her fault that the last link to her baby was now gone. Lost to whatever. Wherever. And there was nothing she could do about it. 

She didn’t hear Maggie and Tara leave the room. She didn’t hear them racing down the stairs or out the door. She didn’t hear the heavy footfalls long minutes later or the heavy-breathing male. But she did hear, “what’s goin’ on? What’s all the carryin’ on about? Wha’s wrong?” Daryl was huffing a bit from the run. He’d been down by the wall where he’d been reinforcing the supports when Maggie burst in on him, Tara hot on her heels.

“I lost it. Sophia’s hair tie. The one I always used to keep her hair out of her face.” It took her a solid minute to explain through tears and wretched sobbing that had erupted unsolicited immediately at his appearance, but Daryl made it out. She had had a million of them in their house in west Georgia, but with being on the run and all, they’d whittled that million down to one and then she’d died and that little bit of elastic, inconsequential as it would have been two years ago, had become the most important thing Carol retained possession of. No longer did she attach herself to  _things._ Everything disappeared one way or another.  _To people._ Especially outside her current small familial group. It hurt too much to care.

But that hair tie…

“Hey, now, I’ll help y’find it. Sure it’s around here somewhere. Just misplaced it, ‘s all,” Daryl soothed, reaching out a hand to touch her shoulder comfortingly. Normally, that low soft voice would help ease her mind, but it wasn’t working. It couldn’t. Carol’s most prized possession was missing and she wasn’t handling it well.

_Please God, please God, please God let me find it. Let me find it. I need to find it. It has to be here somewhere,_ please _God,_  Carol prayed. She’d not said a prayer in over a year. Since her daughter died. Since she’d worried and worried and had just about lost her mind every time one of the group came back without her little girl. Without her baby. 

Carol continued to search the dresser, checking each drawer, the table top, behind the dresser and to the sides, over and over, wracking her brain as to where she’d put it. She remembered placing it this morning on the dresser top and now it wasn’t there. Where was it??? Christ, PLEASE.

As Carol inwardly panicked, Daryl moved across the room to the other side of the bed and began to check the drawers there. Eyes roved back and forth, checking every nook and cranny. He understood how she felt. He’d been there. He knew just how much Sophia had meant to her because he’d been there every step of the way. Every moment of hopin’ and prayin’ and searchin’. A part of him knowing it was only one way it was goin’ to go but prayin’ he’d find her safe as churches, a miracle. He’d hoped for a miracle that had never come.

And now, for the first time since her death, he began to pray again. This time for a bit of elastic and nylon to magically appear, to ease Carol’s fears. God knew, she deserved it.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Maggie duck out, a sad expression on her face, and he knew by it that she thought they would not find it. Fuck that. He’d not been able to give Carol what she needed and wanted back then, but he’d fuckin’ find one damned hair tie. A flash of red shirt swished by, and he called out. “Hey, Eugene, you seen a black hair tie around? A bit stretched out?”

“I heard Rosita fighting with the vacuum cleaner earlier, which is completely illogical given that the machine can’t fight back, but regardless, she remarked about how it became entangled in something. It appeared to be black in color. Could have been your hair tie,” he speculated and then continued on to his room.

Carol’s head had come up during the conversation, a flicker of hope in her eyes growing at each word. Without either of them saying anything, they rose and walked downstairs into the living room where Rosita had taken apart the vacuum cleaner and was muttering about broken parts. “Hey, you seen a hair tie today? Eugene said your vacuum there got caught up with something,” Daryl asked before Carol could. 

Rosita looked up from the dismantling of the cleaner, hands dusty and dirty with black soot. “Yeah, a lot of shit got caught up in it. I saw something elastic, but if it was a hair tie, it isn’t anymore.”

Carol’s heart began to race even faster and her breath hitched. What did she mean? Was it destroyed? Had it been thrown out?

“Where is it?” Daryl continued, shifting his weight impatiently. 

“Threw the whole mess out in the trash. Still in the kitchen I think,” Rosita called as the two of them turned to walk swiftly into the kitchen, toward the trash can adjacent to the granite countertop.

Removing the cover, Daryl bent down. Thank God they hadn’t eaten much today, not a lot of cooking. Otherwise they’d have been a lot more garbage in the can than there was already. Turning over the can and dumping the contents on the floor, disregarding Rosita’s stellar house cleaning abilities, both of them got on hands and knees to pick over the trash pile and hopefully find a very valuable needle in a haystack.

It was Carol who found it. Mangled and torn. It was broken in half, no longer a circle, but now an elastic line, the edges frayed. Her eyes watered and her nose and throat burned with new anguish. Her last connection with her daughter. And it was ruined. She’d kept it safe for two years. She’d looked after it in ways almost nothing had received the same attention. Been so careful. So safe. Always taking it off in showers and baths in the rivers and lakes they’d come to. Always cognizant of where it was at all times.

Seeing it now, seeing it broken and ripped, frayed at the edges and never to be put back together…grief rose up again and lanced through her body, speared through her chest, and the low level ache that had been present in her heart grew. The tears, never far from the surface, surged once again and spilled over like a dam being breached. No dam was strong enough to stem the rise of these waters. The loss, it hit just as hard now as it had then. She’d not been able to take care of her baby. And now, she’d not been able to take care of this last piece, this last connection to her daughter.

Unbidden, the image of her little girl, no, the  _thing_ that had looked like her little girl, rose in her mind and tears swam in her eyes. Illogically, thoughts that she could have done something,  _anything,_ to save her daughter came to the surface and invaded her mind. That scene played on a loop. The snarls. Hisses. Her cries and wails an off-key accompaniment to the wordless growls coming from her daughter.

“Daryl…” she whispered, her watery eyes rising to his, hands delicately lifting the small thing to him. 

“Hey now, we found it. That’s what matters. It may be broken, but you found it. Maybe I can do something to fix it,” he said soothingly. Her eyes darted to his, incredulous and sad and angry all at the same time. “Seen some superglue somewhere ‘round here.” He turned away, out the bedroom door, and a few minutes later, came back with a tube. “Two years out of date, but should still be good,” he said gruffly.

Daryl opened the small tube with his large hands and delicately touched the ends of the ragged elastic with the clear glue. Dropping the tube, he brought both ends of the hair-piece together and waited for the adhesive to do its work. After about a minute, he tested the strength of it by tugging the elastic tentatively, then harder. It held.

He handed it back to her. Carol’s eyes roved over the simple band; fingers grazed over the ragged edges that the glue had not smoothed. “It’s not the same,” she said softly, hoarsely. 

“No, it isn’t,” Daryl replied, equally as soft, gently. “But it’s still here.  _She’s_  still here with ya.”

Her eyes rose to his and tears spilled over again, this time for a different reason. “Thank you,” Carol whispered, and reached for him.

Daryl wasn’t prepared for the hug he received, but he embraced her as well, rubbing her back and bringing a hand to her neck, unconsciously stroking his fingers into the curls there.

Carol shivered. They remained there on the floor on their knees, tension seemingly thickening between them, breathing in synchrony and bodies pressed close...until Carol’s began to ache in protest on the hardwoods. Disengaging slowly, she dragged her hands from around Daryl’s neck gradually, not really wanting to let go, but not really having a good reason to be hugging him for so long either. It’s just…it felt so right. Very few things felt right in their world, but being there, right there, in his arms? It was Christmas and warm nights by a roaring fire, cozying up in bed with a good book. It felt like...home. It was everything she’d dreamed but never known she had wanted in one package.

“I’d better get back to the fences,” Daryl said gruffly, neck still buzzing and electrified, all the little hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. “B’fore Rick has a fit. “Here, lemme.” Taking the hair tie from Carol, he slid it on her wrist, stroking the soft, sensitive patch of skin there absently.  

Carol’s breath hitched, nerves on fire and her entire being focused on that small area. What was he  _doing_  to her? 

Carol nodded, distractedly smoothing the now-fixed hair tie on her wrist where it belonged. “Daryl,” she called as he abruptly began to turn away. 

“Hmm?” he mumbled, turning back, unable to find words or meet her eyes for some strange reason. The hell was wrong with him? This was  _Carol._  

“Thanks again. I really mean it. I’d have lost my mind if I lost this last bit of her. It’s all I have left,” she said quietly, touching the black piece with a stroke of her thumb. 

Ducking his head shyly, he nodded. “Always.”

Watching him go out the front door, Carol crossed over to linger outside, eyes taking in his retreating form getting smaller as he walked the streets of Alexandria. Absently running her thumb under the elastic, stroking the same patch of skin he’d caressed, she leaned against the door jam.

It hadn’t escaped her notice, the way he’d trembled when they’d touched. Or the fact his breath had come faster, just a tad deeper than usual. Something was happening between them, she could feel it. Something that had been building slowly since the first moment he had handed her a heavy axe to put her husband out of his misery. It had continued during the days they’d looked for her little girl. The way  _he’d_ looked for her little girl. Harder than any of them. So much so he’d gotten almost killed for his efforts. Creeping up on them so slowly, gently, neither had really noticed it. Not really. Over the years she’d teased him. On the bus. In the prison. Here in Alexandria. So many times. But she’d never really thought it through, hadn’t thought it would go anywhere. Because he’d never really returned the teasing, dished it out after accepting. He hadn’t given her a sign her feelings were reciprocated. But something was definitely changing between them. And Carol was excited about it, cautiously excited and willing to wait. 

The best things in life were always worth the wait. 

**Author's Note:**

> This story was therapy for me over a piece of jewelry that became damaged. Anyone who has ever lost someone they loved and then lost something they left you or had it break or become damaged will be able to empathize with Carol in this piece. Thanks again to my beta, Amanda, and I hope you enjoyed the story.


End file.
